What 10 000 hours of practise have taught me

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, suggests that we acquire unique expertise through 10 000 of practise. So I was thinking about the 10 000 hours I have spent as Londonmom and what unique expertise I have from that.

But before I tell you mine, I want to hear about yours.  What do you know that you’ve learned through practise? What do you know that you almost take for granted that other people might find amazingly useful?

Ok, now I will tell you one of mine. I know how to get rid of lice. It doesn’t exactly fit into the focus of this blog, but I can bend the rules a bit, after all you can’t live well with nits in your hair.

This is the secret:

At night, before bedtime, take a huge tub of Queen Helene conditioning cream.

Slather it over your child’s scalp, row by row onto the scalp. (You need to use loads)

Wrap child’s head in Clingfilm. Put a bath cap over that.  Put child to bed.

In the morning, rinse the child’s hair and comb.

Repeat process within eight days to catch the little hatchlings.

In my 10 000 hours, I have learned less disgusting things too, but more of that another day.

To conclude on a nice note, I will give you the best stew recipe I know:

Lamb Tagine

One tablespoon oil

600 gm pack of lamb shoulder chops (at least two per person)

Three stalks celery sliced

Three carrots sliced

One onion sliced

One tin of Canelli beans

One tablespoon Ras El Hanout spice mix

One tablespoon tomato puree

One tablespoon honey

100 apricots halved

Fry lamb in oil till brown both sides

Put lamb in oven dish. Fry veggies. Put in oven dish. Add 500ml cold water, tomato puree and seasonings and put in medium oven for about one and a half hours.

Add honey and apricots and continue cooking for another 30 minutes. Serve with rice.